Page 62 of Fireworks

Chapter Twenty Two

*****

Nate

Her gaze hit mine across the table. Giving myself whiplash, I averted my eyes as my mind went right back to thinking about her waking up next to me. My shirt wrapped around her tight little ass as it wiggled its way back into my groin as she drifted in and out of sleep.

Fuck, thinking of anything else right now would have been much preferred. Trying to pretend I didn’t see her, really see her, around everyone was proving more difficult than I expected.

It exhausted me driving for so long. Or maybe it was the earth-shattering sex we had been having the last two days. When we got to Asher’s apartment, I was nervous he would suspect something right away. Luckily, he was so excited for us to be there that they wrote my exhaustion off as having to deal with Katie and her attitude for so long by myself.

After fighting for the first fifteen minutes we were there, Katie and Asher finally decided that we would go grab lunch before he showed us anything around his new city.

“Earth to Nathan. Do you plan to hog the ketchup the entire time?”

The nasty tone of her voice snapped me out of my trance. Her arm was outstretched, the ketchup bottle just out of her reach. Lifting herself from the seat, she pushed herself across the table, her breasts shoving themselves up as she reached in front of me, grabbing the bottle of ketchup.

“Thanks for all the help.”

She mumbled under her breath as she settled back into her seat.

“Give him a break already. He just had to spend the last two days with you. You can’t blame him for trying to tune your voice out.”

Asher shoved a handful of fries into his mouth, laughing. She quickly fired back at him.

“Yes, because having to be stuck withhimfor two days was just sunshine for me.”

Rolling her eyes, she puts extra emphasis on the word him like I’m some sort of plague. The way she so easily switched on her unfiltered hatred for me is impressive. Also, a tad bit scary. It’s no wonder I never knew she didn’t despise me all these years.

“I’ve lived with both of you, remember? Trust me, I’d pick him over you any day. No offense, little sis, but he’s much more fun.”

I sat back, knowing this was probably going to shift into one of their fights and I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to referee right now. Thinking quickly, I swallowed the bite of burger in my mouth.

“So, what’s there to do around here? I’m assuming you didn’t plan on making me come down here just to sit around watching you two fight.”

They were locked in, ready to start round one, thinking fast I threw a fry, hitting the side of Asher’s face.

“What the hell?”

He wiped his face.

“That better not have had ketchup on it.”

I couldn’t help but laugh, and Katie quickly joined in.

“You’re a dick, you know that? I figured tonight we could go out to the bars. Show you exactly what I meant about the girls down here.”

Trying my best to not make it obvious that I wasn’t blind to her being across from us, I could see her expression change as she shoved a fry drenched in ketchup into her mouth.

“Yeah, sounds like fun.”

Taking a long draw of my soda, it killed me I had to sit here pretending I wanted to go bar crawling for a girl. Particularly because it was right in front of her and there was nothing I could do about it.

“What am I supposed to do? Go sit at your apartment with mom and dad all night?”

“No, I set them up at a hotel. They’re not staying at my place. You think mom wouldn’t be rifling through everything. I don’t need her questioning why I have so many condoms in my drawers.”

Katie’s over dramatic gag said it all.